Health
How can hacking the immune system help slow aging?
Published
4 months agoon
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How can hacking the immune system help slow aging?
Stem cell researcher Carolina Florian couldn’t believe what she was seeing. His old laboratory mice began to look younger. They were more lively and their fur was shinier. However, all he had done was a short treatment a few weeks earlier with a drug that modified the organization of proteins in a type of stem cell.
Stem cell researcher Carolina Florian couldn’t believe what she was seeing. His old laboratory mice began to look younger. They were more lively and their fur was shinier. However, all he had done was a short treatment a few weeks earlier with a drug that modified the organization of proteins in a type of stem cell.
When technicians repeating Florian’s experiment in two other laboratories reached the same conclusion, Florian became more confident that the treatment in question would rejuvenate the animals. In two papers in 2020 and 2022, his team explained how this process extended the lifespan of mice and kept them in good physical condition into old age.
The purpose of Florian Elixir is the immune system. The immune cells he targeted are called hematopoietic stem cells, which give rise to mature immune cells. By circulating the blood, a mixture of these cells enters all the organs and affects all the functions of the body. However the molecular composition of hematopoietic stem cells changes during aging, and this upsets the balance of the immune cells that these stem cells produce.
Florian, who works at the Bleuge Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona, says reversing the misalignment that occurs over time appears to reverse many of the problems of aging, not only in the immune system but in the rest of the body as well.
Description Researchers think the immune system could be the key to healthy aging.
In a paper published in March in the journal Nature, researchers show that restoring the balance between two key types of immune cells rejuvenates the immune system of aging mice and improves the animals’ ability to respond to vaccines and ward off viral infections.
Other scientists have used different experimental methods to reach a similar conclusion: Rejuvenating the immune system rejuvenates many organs in animals, at least in mice. More interestingly, evidence shows that aging of the immune system may cause aging of those organs.
The potential of the findings to help people stay healthy in old age is tantalizing. But applying this knowledge and using it in clinics will be challenging. Tampering with the immune system can be dangerous. Therefore, researchers initially aimed at low-risk goals such as improving the response of the elderly to vaccination and improving the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy.
Vittorio Sebastiano, a stem cell scientist at the Stanford School of Medicine in California, says the prospect that reversing aging might curb age-related diseases is enticing, but we proceed with caution.
Weakened immunity
The human immune system is a complex system whose many cellular and molecular components work together to help a person grow, protect him from infection, help heal wounds, and destroy cells that are becoming cancerous. But along with aging and changing the composition of the system, its efficiency decreases. In old age, people become susceptible to a wide range of infectious and non-infectious diseases and become more resistant to the protective power of vaccines.
Aging of the immune system may cause aging of different body parts
The immune system has two main components: the innate system, which indiscriminately destroys invading pathogens, and the more precise adaptive immune system, whose components learn to recognize and produce antibodies against specific foreign bacteria and viruses.
Hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow produce both arms of the immune system. They differentiate into two main types (lymphoid cells and myeloid cells), which then undergo further differentiation.
Lymphoid cells are primarily responsible for adaptive immunity and include B cells that produce antibodies, T cells that help attack invaders and coordinate immune responses and natural killer cells that kill infectious cells. Myeloid cells comprise a group of cell types that are mainly involved in innate immunity.
Proteins in stem cells that produce immune cells become more symmetrical as they age (right).
One of the first changes in the immune system during aging is the shrinking of the thymus, which begins after puberty. The thymus is where T cells mature, but much of this tissue turns to fat by the third decade of life, reducing the production of new T cells and weakening the immune system.
In addition, the function of T cells changes with age and they are not as specialized in detecting infectious agents as before. The ratio of different types of immune cells in the circulation also changes. The ratio of myeloid to lymphoid cells is significantly skewed toward myeloid cells and this can cause inflammation. In addition, an increasing number of immune cells become senescent, meaning that they stop replicating but do not die.
Aging cells usually occur when they undergo mutations. When cells are in this condition, they begin to release inflammatory signals and mark themselves for destruction.
An important anti-cancer and wound-healing mechanism works best when young. But when too much damage accumulates with age and the immune cells themselves age, this mechanism is disrupted. Senescent immune cells, attracted by inflammatory signals from senescent tissues, secrete their own inflammatory molecules. Therefore, they are not cleared properly but instead, add to the inflammation that also damages the surrounding healthy tissues. This phenomenon is known as inflammatory aging. This turns into a terrible positive feedback loop, says Aran Akbar, an immunologist at University College London. Evidence shows that this feedback loop is initiated by the immune system.
Laura Niedernhofer from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis has shown in a series of experiments in mice that the aging of immune cells causes the aging of other tissues. He says these cells are very dangerous.
His team used genetic methods to delete an important DNA repair enzyme in the immune system of mice. The animals remained healthy until adulthood, but after that, they were no longer able to correct the accumulated mutations, and different types of immune cells began to age.
A few months later, an increasing number of cells in organs such as the liver and kidney were also senescent, and signs of organ damage appeared. When the scientists gave old mice immune cells from the spleens of young, healthy mice, all of these effects were reversed. All of this suggests that modifying the aging properties of the immune system could help prevent or reduce age-related diseases, Niederenhofer says.
Fight against aging
Many scientists are trying to do this from very different angles. Many approaches suggest that very short treatment of the immune system may have long-term effects and minimize side effects.
One of the ways to deal with aging immune cells is to use drugs to remove or inhibit the inflammatory factors that these cells release. Aging immune cells in humans can be changed, Niederenhofer says. If you smoke, they increase and if you exercise, they decrease.
Modifying the immune system can help prevent or reduce aging-related diseases
Some drugs, such as dasatinib, which is approved for the treatment of certain cancers, and quercetin, which is marketed as an antioxidant dietary supplement but not approved as a drug, slow cellular aging, and several trials are testing their effects on aging-related diseases.
Niederneuhofer is conducting a small clinical trial in elderly people with sepsis. Sepsis is a condition that becomes more deadly with age. His team is also conducting experiments to assess which types of immune cells are most involved in aging in the body, and their results could help design more precise treatments. Two types of cells (T cells and natural killer cells) are emerging as the main contenders, he says. He plans to examine natural products and approved drugs for their ability to interact with these types of immune cells during aging.
Akbar thinks targeting inflammation may be just as effective as targeting senescent cells. He and his colleagues conducted a study in healthy volunteers using the investigational compound lozepimod, which inhibits an enzyme involved in the production of a type of inflammatory molecule called cytokines. They treated volunteers with this drug for four days and then measured their skin’s response to an injection of the chickenpox virus over the course of a week. Most people are exposed to this virus during their life and this virus often stays in the body.
As people age, they lose their immunity to the chicken pox virus, and this time it can appear as shingles. The drug restored the immune response in the skin of older volunteers to a level similar to that of young volunteers. Akbar has found in unpublished studies that the same strong results persist up to three months later. Temporarily inhibiting inflammation in this way to keep the immune system functioning may similarly enhance the response of older patients to flu vaccinations, he says.
Boosting the immune system
The value of priming the elderly immune system prior to vaccination has been demonstrated in a series of clinical trials led by Joanne Mannick, CEO of Boston, Massachusetts-based Tornado Therapeutics. The trials tested analogs of the drug rapamycin and other drugs with similar mechanisms that target the immune system and are approved to prevent organ transplant rejection and to treat certain cancers.
The mentioned drugs inhibit an enzyme called mTOR, which is vital for many physiological functions and whose function is impaired in aging. Participants were treated with doses of the drug that were low enough to avoid side effects for several weeks before receiving the flu vaccine. This treatment regimen improved their response to the vaccine and increased their immune system’s ability to resist viral infections.
Vaccines are less effective in older people, but new approaches could increase their potency.
However the drug rapamycin can increase susceptibility to infection and affect metabolism, so Manick is planning trials with similar drugs that could be safer. “There are different ways to improve the immune system,” he notes.
Another way is to try to restore thymus function to maintain the production of new T cells. Jarrod Dudakoff, an immunologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, is studying the basic biology of thymus cells to understand how they regenerate after bouts of stress. Dudakov says it’s a little early to see how our understanding of this can be applied in the clinic. But he thinks it’s important to preserve the ability of the thymus to produce T cells.
Others try to fight aging by producing thymus tissue from powerful stem cells and then transplanting it. But Greg Fahey, chief scientific officer at Intervene Immune in Torrance, Calif., says there’s no need to wait to achieve those long-term prospects because synthetic growth hormone regenerates thymus tissue. He is conducting small studies in healthy volunteers using growth hormones as part of a mixture of compounds.
Preliminary results show that the amount of functional thymus tissue in the participants increased and their epigenetic clock (a biomarker of aging) was reversed by several years. Fahey is conducting further testing to see if the drug combination also improves the physical condition of the participants.
Turn back the clock
Another approach that has yet to reach the clinic is reprogramming immune cells to try to turn back the clock on cells that have aged. This procedure involves temporarily placing the cells in a dish exposed to a combination of transcription factors that induce a pluripotent state in mature cells.
Sebastiano and colleagues have shown in human cells that this corrects the epigenetic changes that accompany aging. He has founded a startup to use this technique to tackle a type of cancer treatment called CAR T, in which T cells are engineered outside the body to target and destroy a person’s cancer. However, the T cells may age before they are returned to the person. Rejuvenating them makes production faster and more powerful, says Sebastiano.
One of the challenges of aging studies is the inability to measure aging accurately
Florian’s approach also aims to produce healthier immune cells within the body. Hematopoietic stem cells in the blood develop epigenetic changes and their environment also changes with age. This causes the proteins to arrange themselves in a more symmetrical way in the cells (a process known as polarization), which shifts the balance of differentiation of stem cells towards myeloid cells.
In his studies, Florian used a four-day treatment with a compound called CASIN, which inhibited part of this process to correct polarization and help the mice live longer. When hematopoietic stem cells from aged mice that had received CASIN were transplanted into aged mice that had not received the treatment, the same life-extending effects were seen. Florian hopes to turn his results into a practical method in the clinic. He thinks his drug may help rebuild the immune system after receiving cancer chemotherapy.
The challenge of measuring aging
Research on immune aging faces major challenges. One of the challenges in aging studies of all organs is the inability to measure aging accurately. “We don’t know in a quantitative, measurable, predictable way what aging means at the molecular level in different cell types,” says Sebastiano. “Without these metrics, it is very difficult to demonstrate rejuvenation.”
Another challenge is the difficulty in determining the characteristics that make an immune cell unique. Until recently, it was difficult to show where each of the immune cell subsets lived and how they changed over time. But technologies such as single-cell RNA sequencing, which quantitatively measures genes expressed in single cells, have made the analysis more challenging. For example, a large study of immune cells in the blood of humans and mice across a range of ages, published last November, revealed 55 subpopulations. Only 12 subpopulations of cells changed with age.
By collaborating with different research areas, scientists hope to prove that the immune system plays an important role in healthy aging. Don’t expect an elixir of youth anytime soon, says Florian. Aging research will take a long time, but it can help design tools that will be transformative.
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Health
The secret of the human heart; How did evolution make the vital organ of our body unique?
Published
5 days agoon
31/08/2024![heart](https://elixirofscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Capture-19.png)
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The secret of the human heart; How did evolution make the vital organ of our body unique?
From the giant blue whale to the tiny insectivore, mammals inhabit almost every corner of our planet. Their amazing adaptability to different environments has long fascinated scientists, as each species has developed its own characteristics to survive and thrive in different environments.
Despite the wide biodiversity of mammals, until recently it was thought that the structure and function of the heart is similar in all species. But a new study by a team of researchers from Swansea University’s School of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences in Wales shows that the human heart is an exception, and is strikingly similar to the hearts of our closest relatives, the great apes, including chimpanzees, bonobos, Orangutans, and gorillas are different. But what is the reason for the difference in human hearts?
Humans diverged from chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ), our last common ancestor with the great apes, about five to six million years ago. In contrast, humans evolved to stand and perform more physical activities, such as continuous hunting and developed much larger brains.
The changes in the human body were associated with a very high increase in the need for metabolism; The body needed more blood to pump blood from the heart to the muscles and brain. A new study shows that the human heart has adapted to support standing on two legs, moving around, and growing a bigger brain.
Humans evolved to stand and perform continuous physical activity
Over the past 10 years, researchers have conducted numerous assessments of the cardiovascular system of great apes around the world. The study’s research team managed to collaborate on this project with veterinarians and care workers in the UK, Europe, Africa and Asia. One of the important aspects of this collaboration and evaluations was the use of cardiac ultrasound, which can be used to examine the structure and function of the heart, the size and manner of contraction, twisting and rotation of the heart muscle.
Researchers have concluded in previous studies that the structure of the human heart may be different from the heart of a chimpanzee. Using ultrasound of the heart, they found that the left ventricle of the heart, which is where the heart pumps the heart, in chimpanzees has bundles of muscle embedded in “turgidized” tissue.
Trabeculation or trabeculation refers to the formation of small and network-like muscle bundles inside the ventricles of the heart. Tortigated tissues are like little blades that help the heart muscle to work better when pumping blood.
Comparison of left ventricular tortification in great apes.
The aim of the researchers in the new study was to investigate the structure of tortiginated tissue in other great apes. They found that other great apes have the same heart structure as chimpanzees. In contrast, humans have a smooth wall in their left ventricle. This difference is especially obvious at the bottom of the left ventricle. In the lower part of the left ventricle, the smoothness of the human heart is approximately four times greater than that of the great apes.
A single heart meets our need for more physical activity and a bigger brain
The study not only showed structural differences in the left ventricle of humans compared to great apes but also found a major difference in how the hearts function. Using a specialized technique called speckle tracking echocardiography, which follows the movement of the heart muscle during contraction and expansion, the researchers investigated how this muscle thickens, twists, rotates, and stretches.
The results of the examination of the hearts were surprising. The lowest rate of tortuosity is seen in the human heart, but it was much higher during contraction, twisting, and turning in the lower part of the human heart. In contrast, great apes, with heavily tortiginated hearts, exhibited less motion.
Researchers believe that the human heart evolved from the tortiginated structure seen in other great apes to increase its ability to twist and contract more efficiently. This increased torsion, along with the smooth walls of the ventricles, probably allows the human heart to pump more blood with each beat. This satisfies our need for more physical activity and a bigger brain.
The findings of the study challenge the hypothesis of the sameness and similarity of the structure of the heart in all mammals. Instead, subtle but critical differences in cardiac anatomy and function have emerged in response to unique environmental challenges.
Cardiovascular diseases
A new study by researchers reveals the secret of the evolution of the human heart. However, the research in the field of analyzing the heart of endangered great apes is still going on. Unfortunately, the leading cause of death in captive great apes is cardiovascular disease.
Unlike humans, great apes do not appear to develop coronary artery disease. But their heart muscle undergoes a fibrotic process (thickening or degeneration of the fibers) that leads to weak contraction and susceptibility to arrhythmia, a critical problem in heart rhythm regulation. The cause of this disease remains unknown, therefore, a group of researchers in the International Primate Heart Project evaluated the cardiovascular physiology of great apes around the world to gain a better understanding of this disease.
Prior to the current project, little was known about the normal cardiovascular physiology of great apes. Through a collaboration with veterinarians, the new study has yielded critical data and critically improved our understanding of the evolution of the human heart, as well as the understanding, diagnosis, and management of cardiovascular disease in great apes.
The findings of the study have been published in the journal Nature.
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Can coffee consumption cause weight loss?
Most people feel refreshed after drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. Others even feel that this drink has curbed their hunger. Many people on social networks say about the benefits of consuming this drink on weight loss; But researches have just begun to discover how caffeine and other compounds in coffee affect weight.
Several diets and guidelines nicknamed the “coffee escape” have spread since the beginning of this year and have increased people’s interest in drinking coffee or caffeine in order to lose weight. These sources claim that adding homemade spices or commercial supplements to a cup of coffee, or even drinking the mixture all at once, in the first few seconds of the hunger experience, can increase the weight loss effect. Experts are still confused about this claim: Does coffee, and specifically caffeine, help people lose weight? In this case, how long does this weight loss effect last?
According to rumors, coffee, and other caffeinated products can lead to quick and easy weight loss. This rationale is partially dependent on coffee’s ability to stimulate the digestive system. The caffeine in coffee can cause intestinal muscles to contract, which results in bowel movement.
Long-term coffee consumption will not have significant effects on weight loss.
Therefore, the digestive system clears its contents a little faster than usual. On the other hand, caffeine is a diuretic and urinating more can cause a decrease in body water weight. These combined effects on digestion and water weight occur quickly after coffee consumption, but are short-lived and do not result in permanent weight loss. However, coffee consumption in longer intervals seems to have different effects.
Drinking coffee regularly cannot cause significant weight loss
Drinking coffee on a regular basis cannot cause significant weight loss, but it may be able to prevent excess weight in a balanced way. The average person usually gains weight as they age, but professional coffee drinkers usually see less weight gain.
According to a 2023 study that evaluated the coffee-drinking habits of more than 150,000 participants, over a four-year period, drinking unsweetened coffee had a moderate effect on reducing the rate of weight gain, while adjusting for other lifestyle variables. For every extra cup of coffee the participants drank, they were almost 100 grams less overweight than their peers. Of course, most people probably don’t feel such small weight differences.
Other studies have reported similar results. “You’re still gaining weight with coffee, but the weight gain is less compared to others,” says Frank Hu, chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and author of the 2023 study.
Coffee consumption is also associated with a slight decrease in body fat. According to one study, people who drank four cups of instant coffee in a day had 4% less fat mass. They also lost a small amount of overall weight after the six-month period. These people were compared to a group that drank a drink that tasted and looked like coffee and followed the same diet and exercise habits.
Caffeine, the main bioactive compound in coffee, appears to be one of the main drivers of weight loss. This combination is responsible for activating the process of thermogenesis (heat generation) in the diet or the energy required to absorb and store food. On average, almost 10% of energy is spent on digesting food. Studies have shown that caffeine can increase this amount by increasing people’s metabolic rate.
The higher the metabolic rate, the more energy the body uses at rest. The digestion process speeds up and causes the organs inside the abdomen to use more energy and burn more calories. Overall, the energy boost is small: coffee drinkers may burn 80 to 150 more calories per day, the equivalent of eating a few Oreo cookies. However, those few extra calories lost can add up over time.
Coffee consumption can increase the body’s metabolic rate at rest.
Caffeine is believed to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for regulating the body’s “fight-or-flight” response, and is also involved in blocking adenosine-bound receptors. Adenosine is a neurotransmitter that promotes sleepiness and promotes relaxation. Caffeine then leads to physiological responses in the sympathetic nervous system such as increased heart rate and alertness.
Marilyn Cornelis, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University, says that these effects in turn lead to burning more calories. Caffeine can increase fat oxidation, which is the process of breaking down fat stored in tissues to produce energy. The same issue can explain why coffee consumption is associated with fat mass reduction.
Besides caffeine, coffee contains several polyphenols (a type of antioxidant) that can affect weight. Chlorogenic acid, the polyphenol that gives coffee its bitter taste and strong smell, can help maintain stable blood sugar levels. Since food cravings can be linked to blood sugar fluctuations, more stable blood sugar can help regulate appetite. The bitter taste also plays a role in this process. According to some evidence, the gut senses more bitter compounds and regulates appetite hormones to reduce food intake.
Scientists are at the beginning of understanding how chlorogenic acid increases the effect of coffee on the hormones that control appetite and hunger. According to a small study that tracked 126 overweight people, coffee has a regulatory effect on satiety hormones; So that people usually eat less and feel more full after drinking it.
After drinking coffee, participants experienced higher levels of serotonin, a chemical in the brain that can suppress appetite, and lower levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin. These effects were stronger in people who drank coffee containing more chlorogenic acid.
Evidence suggests that coffee can affect appetite and hunger, but this effect may vary from person to person; Therefore, drinking coffee to suddenly reduce the feeling of hunger may not be a realistic expectation. Scientists are still trying to find out if additives like cinnamon and cayenne pepper have a noticeable effect on coffee’s weight loss. But in general, it says that adding these ingredients is harmless.
The effect of coffee on appetite and hunger may vary from person to person
It seems that coffee is generally beneficial for human health. Research has linked long-term coffee consumption to a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, improved cognitive function, and even reduced mortality; But maybe increasing coffee consumption to achieve these effects is not effective for everyone. According to Rob VanDam, professor of nutrition and exercise science at George Washington University, more doesn’t necessarily mean better.
Drinking more than 400 mg of caffeine per day can increase sleep problems, stress and anxiety. A shot of espresso usually contains 60 mg of caffeine; However, popular coffee drinks can contain more caffeine depending on size and roasting.
Flavored lattes or frappes full of sugar and cream are the opposite of black coffee’s weight loss benefits. According to Cornelis, sugar increases calories and coffee is basically a calorie-free drink. He suggests drinking coffee with less sugar and cream.
Overall, coffee can have modest benefits for weight loss, Ho says. So in general, beware of unrealistic expectations from this drink, because drinking a lot of coffee will not significantly change your body weight.
Health
What is the difference between the brain of athletes and the brain of normal people?
Published
2 weeks agoon
25/08/2024![brain](https://elixirofscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Capture-12.png)
![brain](https://elixirofscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Capture-12.png)
What is the difference between the brains of athletes and the brains of normal people?
Athletes must be the fastest, strongest or most agile opponents in their competition to win. Record-breaking athletes must go far beyond the known limits of the human body.
But in addition to physical prowess, athletes have a unique set of mental skills that allow them to succeed in their fields. Several studies have shown that the brain of athletes is different from the brain of non-athletes. In this article, we mention some examples of these differences.
Processing visual cues
The ability to quickly receive visual information and make decisions based on it is one of the key skills of athletes, especially in team sports such as football or basketball. According to a 2013 study in the journal Scientific Reports, professional ice hockey, soccer, and rugby players are better visual learners than people with lower abilities in these sports.
Professional athletes in the mentioned sports were compared with elite amateurs such as college athletes and European Olympic Sports Training Center players. They were also evaluated against non-athlete university students. Professional athletes performed better than both groups, performing better on tasks such as focusing on objects and tracking them on a screen. In other words, the brains of these athletes are more skilled in processing dynamic visual scenes or the moving world around them. Elite amateurs were evaluated better than non-athletes.
Jocelyn Faber, author of the 2013 study, told LiveScience that the study’s data could be used to improve training for athletes and determine the best possible time to return to sports after injury. For example, assessing how an athlete can optimally process visual information and not make judgmental errors can prevent their early return to sports and reduce the likelihood of re-injury.
Muscle memory
Acrobatic athletes such as divers and gymnasts must become proficient at executing movement sequences without conscious thought. This phenomenon is called muscle memory.
A 2023 study in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that the brain plans and coordinates repetitive movements, such as those of trained athletes and musicians, by compressing and decompressing important information. At first, the sequence and timing of steps are programmed separately in the brain, but with practice, these separate elements integrate seamlessly into a stream of coordinated brain activity. This process involves a network of neurons in the cortex (outer layer of the brain) that is responsible for regulating movements.
Predictions
In baseball, the hitter must accurately and quickly predict the fate of each ball that the pitcher throws. For example, will the ball enter the strike zone and how fast will it come?
Brain activity also changes based on the hitter’s prediction. Specifically, according to a 2022 study in the journal Cerebral Cortex, neurons in an area of the brain called the left ventral cingulate cortex change in these scenarios. According to the authors, this is likely due to the hitter’s unique ability to associate visual cues about the pitcher’s movements with the potential trajectory of the ball.
Structurally, research has also shown that the superior temporal sulcus (STS) is thicker in professional divers than in novices. The STS is a brain region that plays an important role in motor perception and helps decipher the intentions behind movements. This feature makes sense when diving; Because these athletes often learn by watching other divers perform. Of course, this also applies to other sports.
Balance
Gymnasts like Simone Biles usually have an enhanced sense of space, called proprioception.
Acrobatic athletes such as gymnasts have impressive depth perception skills, or the ability to perceive their body in space. A complex network of neurons in the cerebellum, a region at the base of the brain, allows athletes to quickly correct their trajectory in the air or keep their balance on the machine if things don’t go according to plan.
If the safety network of spatial perception is disturbed, it can cause the athlete to lose control of his body in the middle, with potentially fatal consequences. This happened to American gymnast Simone Biles during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Focus and attention
Football players must constantly think about their feet during the match
Athletes must divide their attention appropriately and dynamically switch between different ways of thinking. For example, a soccer player who is dribbling the ball during a match must quickly change his direction if he collides with a player from the opposing team.
The cognitive skills needed to shift attention can be seen in everyday life and tasks such as listening to a podcast while cleaning the house. A 2022 study in the International Journal of Sports Psychology provided evidence that athletes perform much better in this area than non-athletes.
Athletes in team sports that require high-intensity aerobic or interval training have special attention-shifting skills. The researchers found that they stood out because of their cognitive flexibility and their ability to allocate attention appropriately.
It is not yet clear why exercise exercises affect people’s cognition. According to Art Kramer, one of the authors of the study, we need a long-term study or a randomized controlled trial to find out; In such a way that some children undergo sports exercises, while others do not undergo these trainings and then they are monitored over time. However, such research would be unethical; Because doing it requires denying a group of children access to sports.
Resistance to brain aging
Olga Kotelko was one of the greatest-known athletes in her field
The cognitive benefits of exercise training last throughout life. Perhaps there is no better example than Olga Kotelko, a Canadian track and field athlete who holds more than 30 world records. Before Olga’s death in 2014 at the age of 95, Kramer and her colleagues examined her brain in the laboratory.
With age, the white matter of the brain, which is responsible for connecting neurons in different parts, deteriorates. However, the researchers found that the white matter of Olga’s brain remained more intact than that of less active women in the past thirty years, even though she was in her mid-90s.
Elga was also faster in responding to cognitive tasks than other 90-year-olds and had a better memory than them. Of course, general results cannot be obtained from just one athlete. However, according to the researchers, there was only one pattern. Because of this, he offered scientists only a small perspective of the long-term effects of exercise on the brain.
Educating the next generation
Starting sports from a young age helps to improve sports performance at an older age.
Strengthening the brain training of athletes from a young age can lead to more sports achievements in the future. According to Kylie Steele, a sports scientist at the University of Western Sydney in Australia, at some point in an athlete’s training, the human body can’t go further, but cognitive skills can be worked on.
Steele and his colleagues believe that coaches should focus more on athletes’ cognitive abilities, such as memory and decision-making skills. This issue is especially important during the early years of life when the brain is more flexible. In ball sports such as soccer, this type of drill involves asking players to use their non-dominant feet to kick the ball. Steele suggests:
If we encourage more training related to cognitive improvement, especially in the first years, we will eventually have more tactically professional players.
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